Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume I Part 68

"Well, away went Dan at a full gallop. Gronow sat down on a bank, and I fidgeted about in no very enviable frame of mind, the confounded provost-marshal eying me all the while.

"'I can only give you five minutes more, Major,' said Gronow, placing his watch beside him on the gra.s.s. I tried to pray a little, and said three or four of Solomon's proverbs, when he again called out: 'There, you see it won't do! Sir Arthur is shaking his head.'

"'What's that waving yonder?'

"'The colors of the 6th Foot. Come, Major, off with your stock.'

"'Where is Dan now; what is he doing?'--for I could see nothing myself.

"'He's riding beside Sir Arthur. They all seem laughing.'

"'G.o.d forgive them! what an awful retrospect this will prove to some of them.'

"'Time's up!' said Gronow, jumping up, and replacing his watch in his pocket.

"'Provost-Marshal, be quick now--'

"'Eh! what's that?--there, I see it waving! There's a shout too!'

"'Ay, by Jove! so it is; well, you're saved this time, Major; that's the signal.'

"So saying, Gronow formed his fellows in line and resumed his march quite coolly, leaving me alone on the roadside to meditate over martial law and my pernicious taste for relics.

"Well, Charley, this gave me a great shock, and I think, too, it must have had a great effect upon Sir Arthur himself; but, upon my life, he has wonderful nerves. I met him one day afterwards at dinner in Lisbon; he looked at me very hard for a few seconds: 'Eh, Monsoon! Major Monsoon, I think?'

"'Yes, your Excellency,' said I, briefly; thinking how painful it must be for him to meet me.

"'Thought I had hanged you,--know I intended it,--no matter. A gla.s.s of wine with you?'

"Upon my life, that was all; how easily some people can forgive themselves!

But Charley, my hearty, we are getting on slowly with the tipple; are they all empty? So they are! Let us make a sortie on the cellar; bring a candle with you, and come along."

We had scarcely proceeded a few steps from the door, when a most vociferous sound of mirth, arising from a neighboring apartment, arrested our progress.

"Are the dons so convivial, Major?" said I, as a hearty burst of laughter broke forth at the moment.

"Upon my life, they surprise me; I begin to fear they have taken some of our wine."

We now perceived that the sounds of merriment came from the kitchen, which opened upon a little courtyard. Into this we crept stealthily, and approaching noiselessly to the window, obtained a peep at the scene within.

Around a blazing fire, over which hung by a chain a ma.s.sive iron pot, sat a goodly party of some half-dozen people. One group lay in dark shadow; but the others were brilliantly lighted up by the cheerful blaze, and showed us a portly Dominican friar, with a beard down to his waist, a buxom, dark-eyed girl of some eighteen years, and between the two, most comfortably leaning back, with an arm round each, no less a person than my trusty man Mickey Free.

It was evident, from the alternate motion of his head, that his attentions were evenly divided between the church and the fair s.e.x; although, to confess the truth, they seemed much more favorably received by the latter than the former,--a brown earthen flagon appearing to absorb all the worthy monk's thoughts that he could spare from the contemplation of heavenly objects.

"Mary, my darlin,' don't be looking at me that way, through the corner of your eye; I know you're fond of me,--but the girls always was. You think I'm joking, but troth I wouldn't say a lie before the holy man beside me; sure I wouldn't, Father?"

The friar grunted out something in reply, not very unlike, in sound at least, a hearty anathema.

"Ah, then, isn't it yourself has the illigant time of it, Father dear!"

said he, tapping him familiarly upon his ample paunch, "and nothing to trouble you; the best of divarsion wherever you go, and whether it's Badahos or Ballykilruddery, it's all one; the women is fond of ye. Father Murphy, the coadjutor in Scariff, was just such another as yourself, and he'd coax the birds off the trees with the tongue of him. Give us a pull at the pipkin before it's all gone, and I'll give you a chant."

With this he seized the jar, and drained it to the bottom; the smack of his lips as he concluded, and the disappointed look of the friar as he peered into the vessel, throwing the others, once more, into a loud burst of laughter.

"And now, your rev'rance, a good chorus is all I'll ask, and you'll not refuse it for the honor of the church."

So saying, he turned a look of most droll expression upon the monk, and began the following ditty, to the air of "Saint Patrick was a Gentleman":--

What an illegant life a friar leads, With a fat round paunch before him!

He mutters a prayer and counts his beads, And all the women adore him.

It's little he's troubled to work or think, Wherever devotion leads him; A "pater" pays for his dinner and drink, For the Church--good luck to her!--feeds him.

From the cow in the field to the pig in the sty, From the maid to the lady in satin, They tremble wherever he turns an eye.

He can talk to the Devil in Latin!

He's mighty severe to the ugly and ould, And curses like mad when he's near 'em; But one beautiful trait of him I've been tould, The innocent craytures don't fear him.

It's little for spirits or ghosts he cares; For 'tis true as the world supposes, With an Ave he'd make them march down-stairs, Av they dared to show their noses.

The Devil himself's afraid, 'tis said, And dares not to deride him; For "angels make each night his bed, And then--lie down beside him."

A perfect burst of laughter from Monsoon prevented my hearing how Mike's minstrelsy succeeded within doors; but when I looked again, I found that the friar had decamped, leaving the field open to his rival,--a circ.u.mstance, I could plainly perceive, not disliked by either party.

"Come back, Charley, that villain of yours has given me the cramp, standing here on the cold pavement. We'll have a little warm posset,--very small and thin, as they say in Tom Jones,--and then to bed."

Notwithstanding the abstemious intentions of the major, it was daybreak ere we separated, and neither party in a condition for performing upon the tight-rope.

CHAPTER LV.

THE LEGION.

My services while with the Legion were of no very distinguished character, and require no lengthened chronicle. Their great feat of arms, the repulse of an advanced guard of Victor's corps, had taken place the very morning I had joined them, and the ensuing month was pa.s.sed in soft repose upon their laurels.

For the first few days, indeed, a multiplicity of cares beset the worthy major. There was a despatch to be written to Beresford, another to the Supreme Junta, a letter to Wilson, at that time with the corps of observation to the eastward. There were some wounded to be looked after, a speech to be made to the conquering heroes themselves, and lastly, a few prisoners were taken, whose fate seemed certainly to partake of the most uncertain of war's proverbial chances.

The despatches gave little trouble; with some very slight alterations, the great original, already sent forward to Sir Arthur, served as a basis for the rest. The wounded were forwarded to Alcantara, with a medical staff; to whom Monsoon, at parting, pleasantly hinted that he expected to see all the sick at their duty by an early day, or he would be compelled to report the doctors. The speech, which was intended as a kind of general order, he deferred for some favorable afternoon when he could get up his Portuguese; and lastly, came the prisoners, by far the most difficult of all his cares.

As for the few common soldiers taken, they gave him little uneasiness,--as Sir John has it, they were "mortal men, and food for powder;" but there was a staff-officer among them, aiguilletted and epauletted. The very decorations he wore were no common temptation. Now, the major deliberated a long time with himself, whether the usages of modern war might not admit of the ancient, time-honored practice of ransom. The battle, save in glory, had been singularly unproductive: plunder there was none; the few ammunition-wagons and gun-carriages were worth little or nothing; so that, save the prisoners, nothing remained. It was late in the evening--the mellow hour of the major's meditations--when he ventured to open his heart to me upon the matter.

"I was just thinking, Charley, how very superior they were in olden times to us moderns, in many matters, and nothing more than in their treatment of prisoners. They never took them away from their friends and country; they always ransomed them,--if they had wherewithal to pay their way. So good-natured!--upon my life it was a most excellent custom! They took any little valuables they found about them, and then put them up at auction.

Moses and Eleazar, a priest, we are told, took every piece of gold, and their wrought jewels,--meaning their watches, and ear-rings. You needn't laugh, they all wore ear-rings, those fellows did. Now, why shouldn't I profit by their good example? I have taken Agag, the King of the Amalekites,--no, but upon my life, I have got a French major, and I'd let him go for fifty doubloons."

It was not without much laughing, and some eloquence, that I could persuade Monsoon that Sir Arthur's military notions might not accept of even the authority of Moses; and as our headquarters were at no great distance, the danger of such a step as he meditated was too considerable at such a moment.

As for ourselves, no fatiguing drills, no hara.s.sing field-days, and no provoking inspections interfered with the easy current of our lives.

Foraging parties there were, it was true, and some occasional outpost duty was performed. But the officers for both were selected with a tact that proved the major's appreciation of character; for while the gay, joyous fellow that sung a jovial song and loved his _liquor_ was certain of being entertained at headquarters, the less-gifted and less-congenial spirit had the happiness of scouring the country for forage, and presenting himself as a target to a French rifle.

My own endeavors to fulfil my instructions met with but little encouragement or support; and although I labored hard at my task, I must confess that the soil was a most ungrateful one. The cavalry were, it is true, composed mostly of young fellows well-appointed, and in most cases well-mounted; but a more disorderly, careless, undisciplined set of good-humored fellows never formed a corps in the world.